Deal of the Day - 8/28/09

Hello All,

Microsoft has met Sony's price drop with a price drop of their own. The 360 has fallen in price just like the PS3 did before it. The new pricing is as follows.

• The 360 Elite is now $299 down from $399
• The 360 Pro is now $249 down from $299
• The 360 Arcade did not change and remains $199

If you want one, Amazon has the best deals right now. If you buy the Elite you get a year of free Xbox Live service, and if you buy the Pro you get to choose a free copy of Halo 3, Fable II, or Halo Wars. The best deal, while supplies last, is this one though. The 360 Elite, with Halo 3 and Fable II for $299.

Xbox Live is advertised as $50 a year, but you can find it for around $30 most of the time. The two games with the last bundle are worth about $80 together, making it a better deal. They have also removed the free HDMI cables with the newer bundles and it is still included in the Halo 3 - Fable II edition, saving you about $10 more dollars.

Now the dilemma. The PS3, Xbox360 and Wii can all be had for under $300. The Wii for me is still the least desirable of all three, and for me has been used the least. The wife last night commented about it being a waste of our money. I do not think that, but it gets the least amount of usage of all three systems in our house. Although I love the 360 and have played more games on it than the other two consoles combined, the PS3 is the best value. It does more outside of playing games (Blu-ray player, Internet Browser, Picture Viewer, it supports almost every audio and video codex out there), and on top of that the controller is wireless and includes rechargeable batteries in it. The 360 is the better game console, but there is more to the race then the game aspect, and Sony is starting to catch up to the 360 on the game front. The 360 needs to either drop in price again, or add more features to compete at the $299 price point.

I think the first one to have a DVR add-on will really dominate the market. The PS3 already is selling one in Europe, how long before they sell one here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 8/24/09

Hello All,

This is a today only one, but a good deal. Woot is selling a new Xbox 360 Pro for $229.99. You can get free shipping buy using code ONEBAG for $5 off. This price is $70 less than you can find it at most places, although with the price drop on the PS3, I am sure an Xbox Price drop will be coming soon, and Wal-mart is having on next weekend, on the model above this one.

Find this deal here.

You can find rechargeable battery packs for the controllers, here. Use the code listed above for the discount on shipping on that item.

Later,

John

The tubes were right!!!

Hello All,

The PS3 slim is coming out in September and it will be $299. The old ones are now $299, but they have smaller hard drives, 80 vs 120, and are bigger. I would wait to see what deals Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and the rest will have for the old PS3s before making a decision as to which model to get.

I have said it before, and I will say it again. The PS3 is the best media hub out there. I use it at least as much for entertainment as I do for games, if not more for entertainment. Here are some of the reasons I strongly recommend it:

1. It is the best Blu-Ray player on the market - It has frequent free updates, and is BD-Live compatible
2. It up-converts dvds, divx, and almost anything else you throw at it
3. You can hook your camera up too it and pull your pictures down to it
4. You can rip Cds to it
5. You can copy MP3s and AACs to it
6. It has a web browser built in, with flash support - YouTube works great with it
7. You can stream to it from your PC - UPnP support is built in

On top of all of that, it plays games, and has lots of casual games. Most games have free demos too so you can try before you buy.

Here are the pictures of old versus new

Here is the official PS3 press release

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #2 - 8/17/09

Hello All,

If you are in the market for a netbook because you want something cheap, you should get this. Best Buy is selling a 15" Acer with 2Gb of ram and a 64-bit processor for $279.99. This is cheaper then a Dell Mini10 and it is a full powered machine.

You will give up battery life and weight over a netbook, but it is a full powered machine, and it has a DVD drive.

Find this deal here.

Later,

John

Rumors for August

Hello All,

Looking back at my blog I see that my rumor postings have been, well, less than accurate. So take these with a grain of salt. I will put the rumors in highest likelihood to lowest.

1. New iPods will be hitting the market around September 7th.
   There is an Apple Event this day, so something will be coming out, and I doubt it will just be iTunes 9.
2. Snow Leopard will be coming out early, possibly the last week in August.
   It is a significant upgrade from Leopard, if you can you should get it.
3. The Sony PS3 price drop will finally be coming in September.
   The tubes are saying $300 for the unit, and possibly a slimmer version as well. I think the price drop will happen, probably not the slimmer, unfortunately.

There you have all of the tech rumors I know. Keep these in mind if you are close to buying one of the items listed, as the old models will price drop when the new ones hit, or you might get more bang for your buck if you wait a little bit.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 8/17/09

Hello All,

Woot is again selling an EEEPC, but this time it is brand spanking new, and it is cheaper than before. Woot is selling the 900, with 1GB of ram, and a 4GB solid state drive, for 169.99. Use coupon code ONEBAG for free shipping.

I like the EEEPC, but the keyboard is too small for me. If I were to get a netbook I would get a Dell Mini9 or Mini10. If you are in the market but do not think the EEEPC is for you, wait a bit. The Mini9 goes on sale fairly regularly, and the Mini10 is due for a sale soon.

Find this deal here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #2 - 8/14/09

Hello All,

10% off coupons for Best Buy. The items are limited, but there is a good variety of stuff. They expire on 8/17/09.

You can find the coupons here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 8/14/09

Hello All,

Newegg is running a deal on all Hard Drives. You can get 15% off by using code HDDSALE15. This deal runs until 8/16/09.

You can find this deal here.

Deal of the Day #3 - 8/13/09

Hello All,

Free beer. Sam Adams beer samples for free 5-7pm at Cub Foods East Side, tonight only.

If you do not happen to live in the great city of Madison, you can see the rest of the options for your location here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #2 - 8/13/09

Hello All,

Woot is selling a 12 DVD collectors set for $24.99. This set is the United Artists Cinema Greats collections 1, 2, and 3. The included movies are

• 12 Angry Men
• A Bridge Too Far
• A Fistful of Dollars
• Dr. No
• Judgment at Nuremberg
• Paths of Glory
• Rocky
• The Great Escape
• The Magnificent Seven
• The Pink Panther
• The Thomas Crown Affair
• West Side Story

These movies have 2 best picture awards and a total of 16 academy awards. For $2.08 a movie, it is a great deal.

Use code ONEBAG for free shipping.

You can find this deal here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 8/13/09

Hello All,

Newegg has a couple TomTom gps units for cheap cheap prices. They have a refurbished 4.3" TomTom One XL for $88.00, a TomTom One without text-to-speech for $69.00 and one with text-to-speech for $87.99. The last two have rebates making them even cheaper, but most people forget to fill those out so I am not including those in the prices.

The One XL is the best deal. It has text-to-speech (it says the street names, a great feature), bluetooth, and a large screen. The other two are good deals as well, depending on your needs. I do not like the turn in 500ft models myself, I like the turn on main st, but both work.

Find the XL here.

Find the non text-to-speech one here.

Find the text-to-speech model here.

Lastly, I am a Garmin man. They make the best GPS's out there. If you plan on using the GPS a lot they are worth the extra money. But if you are not after something you will use a lot, the TomTom is fine. Someone has to be second place :-).

One more bonus thing, both the TomTom and Garmin allow you to plan your routes on Mapquest and then upload the route to the GPS. This is great as a keyboard and mouse beats a touchscreen any day of the week.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #4 - 8/5/09

Hello All,

Newegg is selling a Samsung Laser Printer for $44.00, with free shipping.

Use code EMCLWLR32 (Exp. 8/10).

Find this deal here.

By itself this is a great deal on a decent printer. If you really want to increase your awesomeness and the usefulness of the printer, you need to add this too it. A network print server. This allows you to hook the printer into your network and print to it from any computer at anytime. This is great for laptops, which we use almost exclusively at our house, then you do not have to move files around, or hook up the printer to the laptop, or anything. It is really great.

I personally use this print server, and it works well for me. It is easy to set-up and works all of the time. It is a bit old now though, so I am sure something better has come along. If I were buying today I would get this one, as it has parallel and usb, and you can hook up a couple of printers to it, ie the laser and a color, or whatever.

The two last things about using a printer server are you can move the printer virtually anywhere you want - in other words you can hide it - the wife loves this. Lastly, you do not need to leave a computer on all of the time for printer sharing. You will save the cost of the print server in a few months worth of use, compared to the costs for keeping a computer on and running 24/7.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #3 - 8/5/09

Hello All,

Teva is having a clearance sale on some of its shoes and sandals.

You can find them here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day #2 - 8/5/09

Hello All,

Rockstar Games is offering free game downloads of classic PC games. You can choose from GTA, GTA 2, or Wild Metal. I would pick one of the GTAs, but I believe if you have three email addresses, you can get all three.

You can find this here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 8/5/09

Hello All,

Sports Illustrated is offering Madden 2010, an NFL Films DVD, and 28 weeks of SI the magazine, all for the low price of $50. This is less than Madden costs on either the PS3 or 360. You get to choose your version of Madden too, be it PS3, Wii, 360, PS2, whatever.

This is a great deal.

You can find it here.

Later,

John

Deal of the Day - 8/3/09

Hello All,

Free RedBox rental. This code is good until 8/3/09.

Use code 27HZ4KT

I have not tried it, but 7sD4BWL8 is supposed to work until 8/13/09 as well.

Later,

John